Will You Excuse Me
by Loveedith
Summary: Edith and Bertie, before and after she tells him about Marigold in 6:8
1. Will You Excuse Me?

Never for a moment had Edith thought that she deserved Bertie's love. Never for a moment had she thought he would want her any longer after she had told him about Marigold.

She knew from the beginning that it would soon end in disaster. As it always did for her as far as men where concerned. All she could hope for now was to be able to drag out the time before the inevitable break up would happen.

She was sure that this was the last time that she would ever be courted by a man. She would probably not want anyone else after Bertie anyhow - no one could ever compare to him and the way she felt for him.

Every time Bertie kissed her she was fearing that it was for the last time. How would she ever be able to do without him, now that she had had him so close?

She was more happy and more unhappy than she had ever been, all at the same time.

She had really tried not to fall in love with Bertie, but that had only made her fall deeper. She was sure she had never met any man that was remotely like Bertie. He was just perfect. Kind, capable, strong enough to dare to show his own vulnerability. Polite, intelligent and handsome. Friendly, helpful and willing to see the good in every human being he met.

It was impossible to understand how a man like him had happened to fall in love with _her_. Perhaps she was too in love with him to be able to see his faults, but she really hadn't found any.

When he looked at her she felt all yummy inside. When he kissed her her heart started shivering.

Bertie was like a man made up by her own imagination. She sometimes wondered if this was just a dream that she would very soon wake up from.

...

At the breakfast table Mary had provoked Edith to tell Bertie that Marigold was her own daughter.

Edith knew this was the end. She also knew that she only had herself to blame. For not telling him earlier. For accepting his proposal.

For rubbing Mary in the wrong direction.

Bertie had looked so happy after he kissed her in the evening. Edith just couldn't get herself to tell him. He had been so sad earlier in the day, and now she didn't dare to tell him and make him sad again.

So she just played along, hoping to be able to tell him later on.

She loved him so much. She was sure that she had never made anyone so happy before.

* * *

AN: Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment!


	2. You Hurt Him!

There was so much disappointment in Bertie's look as he let it sink in. Edith found it hard to meet his eyes. He looked so devastated, so utterly betrayed and humiliated.

"Will you excuse me?" he said then. He even pushed his chair back under the table before he left. Who else but Bertie would do a thing like that after having his heart broken?

Edith looked after him as he walked away. She was fully aware of what she had lost.

...

"You hurt him!" Edith shouted to Mary as soon as Bertie had left the room.

Edith was so upset. Everyone in the room except Bertie had behaved badly, and he was the one to ask to be excused!

No, that was unfair to Tom, Edith realised. Tom hadn't done anything wrong, but Mary and Edith herself had both been horrible.

"You hurt him!" Edith repeated. "He has never been anything but kind to you, and you humiliated him!"

Mary gave Edith a disdainful look.

"Perhaps you ought to have thought about things like that before writing that letter", she said.

"I wrote that letter more than ten years ago!" Edith said. "I'm sorry about it, but I have grown up since then. And at least that letter was true, unlike what..."

"So Marigold is a lie now?" Mary retorted.

"No, of course not, but you humiliated Bertie. You hurt him! He is a kind man, he didn't deserve that. Not any more than Anthony did when you lied to him..."

Tom was surprised. He looked from one of the two sisters to the other. What was this all about? He had no idea but he'd better not ask. Had Mary had something to do with Sir Anthony jilting Edith?

"I said I _admired_ Bertie", Mary said. "That is _praise._ "

Mary looked very pleased with herself.

"He didn't deserve it", Edith repeated again. "He didn't deserve it any more than Anthony did. You can be as nasty as you want to me, I guess you have reason to, but you shouldn't drag innocent people into it."

Mary just gave her a contemptuous smile.

"Besides, you think you are so smart but you are simply stupid. You could have got rid of me many years ago if you had only let Anthony marry me at the time."

...

Perhaps it was as well that Lord Grantham entered the room at that moment, telling Edith to go out and talk to Bertie. Bertie was standing outside the house with his bags, waiting to be driven down to the station, unwilling to talk about what had happened between him and Edith, even unwilling to let Stark drive him.

"You owe him that", Robert said to Edith. "Even if it is over between the two of you, you owe him a goodbye."

Edith quickly got up from the table. She could deal with Mary later on. Robert sent Tom to ask Stark to get the car, and Mary continued her solitary breakfast, telling herself that she had done exactly the right thing.

* * *

AN: Thank you for reading! Thank you for the comments to last chapter! Please leave a comment!

...

I have just re-watched series 1 of Downton, and that conversation between Mary and Anthony is still very painful to see. It is hard to feel sorry for Mary when Matthew leaves her right after that.


	3. You Haven't been Fair to me

"I can understand if you are shocked", Edith said to Bertie once they had got far enough from the house for her father not to be able to overhear them. "You thought I was a nice, innocent family girl, you didn't expect me to have a secret like that."

Bertie didn't know what to say to that. He thought for a few moments - no, he had never thought Edith was an innocent family girl only waiting for a man to find her and marry her. There were plenty of these now after the war had killed so many young men, but none of them had ever interested him.

It was Edith's independence that had fascinated him.

"I'm not shocked exactly", he said. "It isn't that. I promise you."

"You have to protect the honour of your family", Edith said. "Of course you do."

Edith was trying to be very understanding it seemed.

"It isn't even that", he said. Well, he had better explain. "You should have told me the whole story from the beginning. You haven't been fair to me."

She accepted even that.

"No. I don't believe I have."

"Then why didn't you?"

"I suppose I thought it might ruin everything."

"You mean you didn't trust me?" That was the problem. She had trusted everybody with her secret, even her sister that she wasn't exactly close to. But not him. The man she said she loved.

"I can't have, can I?"

"Would you have married me in a lie?" That was a perfectly normal question, considering, Bertie thought.

"I don't think so, but we'll never know now."

"No. You see, I don't feel I could spend my life with someone I don't trust. Who didn't trust me. Do you understand?" Well, he had said it now. This was the end, no matter how painful it was to himself.

"Yes. I'm terribly sorry, of course, but that doesn't mean much, does it? The truth is, my life was about to be perfectly wonderful and now I've thrown it all away."

Bertie looked at her. It was like her words struck a cord in his heart.

"Do you really mean that? That your life would have been wonderful with me?"

Edith only nodded. She didn't dare to meet his eyes now.

"Because I'm a marquess?" That was it of course, wasn't it. He could never trust a woman to love _him_ in the future, only his title and his estate.

"No, because you are you." It was only a low whisper, perhaps not even meant for him to hear. But he did, and it almost changed his mind. But only almost. He hardened his heart.

"I'd better go if I'm to catch my train", he said.

"Yes, hurry. I doubt we'll meet again so I want to say good luck, and everything else that goes with it."

"Good luck to you, too. I mean that." And those were the last words Bertie would ever say to Edith, they both thought.

Edith looked at Bertie as he walked away. She had lost him and it wasn't Mary's fault at all.

It was her own.

* * *

AN:Thank you all for reading! And thank you all for the many interesting and friendly comments to last chapter!

...

I managed to get quite a debate about Mary didn't I?

And now I will rant...

I was mostly inspired to that chapter by watching S1. That was my reason for putting Edith's letter and Sir Anthony into it to begin with.

None of the two sisters is very likeable in S1, but I think Mary crushing Sir Anthony in 1:7 is the worst part of the whole first S1. He had done nothing wrong except wanting to marry her sister. Though, in spite of my biased penname, I think both Anthony and Matthew were lucky to escape the Crawley sisters after that first series. I feel more sorry for Edith in the series though, because of the way her parents treated her.

I will watch S2 and the rest later so I say nothing about that for now. I didn't get my penname and start writing stories until after S2.

I agree with _Unlogged In_ that Mary wouldn't say "thick head", not in S1 at least, so I changed that part of last chapter. But apart from that I don't think I have made her one bit worse than in canon.

Mary is insulting Sir Anthony in a totally levelheaded and polite way in 1:7, which makes it so much worse. The final break with Matthew didn't come until after that. In 6:8 she does send Carson away but doesn't even manage to be polite to Bertie to begin with. She was much more unhinged in 6:8 than in 1:7, but behaved worse in 1:7.

What I really wanted to show in chapter 2 is that Edith is defending _Bertie_ , not herself, because I think she would have done that and we never see it on screen. She always thought he was going to end it with her when he was told about Marigold. And she thought that he was fully entitled to do so.

I don't think Tom would interfer in the quarrel in my chapter 2 - he tried that while Bertie was still there and he is wise enough to understand when it is too late after Bertie left. If anything he should have gone after Bertie.

That Mary was stupid not to let Anthony propose to Edith in 1:7 is of course my own thought. I just let Edith express it here, though by the time of the famous breakfast she was probably glad she _hadn't_ married Anthony. People do get over their old loves.

...

I have decided to end the story here - the rest is canon. It took me half a year to get from chapter 1 to chapter 2, so obviously my heart wasn't in it.

And when my AN:s get longer than my chapters I think it is time to end.


End file.
